First, I want to say that many of you reading this may not agree with me on this.  However, I have had lot’s of time to think about it and I’m just going to speak my mind on the matter.  I was talking to a good friend of mine who is a newer teacher in a great educational organization about his first few days of work.  I decided to leave the school system out of this post J.  He talked to me about how great his students were and how he was enjoying working with them this year.  He then went on to talk to me about the “instructional walk-throughs” he and other teachers in his building had been receiving.  He said that in a two day period he received 7 walk-throughs by various instructional personnel.  He then went on tell me about notes that were left behind from the administrators conducting the walk-throughs.  Some of the notes were encouraging, but some of them included things like “I see three students with inappropriate jackets on!”  Please don’t forget that some of the folks who left notes hadn’t ever had one conversation with him!!!

So, here’s the deal!  This is not a way to lead!!!  Yes, I believe in quality walk-throughs!  Honestly, as a principal I should have done more.  However, if you want to truly impact students and help your staff members you need to stop and take some time to have conversations with people.  If people do not know the reason why you are in their room, or if they think the only thing you are there for is to find fault in everything they do I promise you it will not equate to increased student performance.   So here are a few tips for administrators as it relates to teachers and instructional walk-throughs intended for improving student performance:

*Take time to get to know people: This is always a first for me.  If the teachers do not know you or trust you, they will not truly take to heart what you are trying to help them do.  Before you start finding every fault that the teacher has, take a moment to visit him/her on their conference and truly get to know who they are.

*Don’t leave notes early on for things they need to work on: When you notice early on in the walk-through process that there are some things they need to work on, simply go to them and visit with them about it.  As I said earlier, if they do not truly know you they will either dismiss what you said, or get very upset about it and shut down.  Go to their room and talk about what you saw take place in the room, and begin to have a good dialogue with them about the things that weren’t going so well.  This may not even be the best time at this point to point out those 3 students who had the wrong jacket on.  They will appreciate a conversation over a note every single time about the things they need to work on.  If you need to document something on a form follow the conversation up with the form that is needed.

*Let teachers know the purpose of instructional walk-throughs: I will be the first to say I made this mistake as a principal!!! I would tell the teachers “We will be doing more walk-throughs this year!’ However I failed to tell them the true purpose of an instructional walk-through.  Our new teachers were totally confused about the process, and many of the veteran teachers thought that it was some type of gotcha.  I could have better served the faculty by giving them the true purpose of the instructional walk-throughs.  By the way, there should be only one true purpose and that’s to improve student performance, or to enhance certain instructional practices on campus.

*Provide teachers with useful data and share great instructional ideas: Let teachers know the data you are getting from the instructional walk-throughs.  Another reason teachers do not understand the purpose is because sometimes the information that is gathered from the walk-throughs is lost.  So, take the time to gather the data and present it.  Let them know what you are seeing on campus and point out what’s working well, and also what needs to be improved from a total campus perspective.  This is also a good time to share great instructional practices that you see occurring in classrooms.  You do not have to let them know where you see everything, sometimes it’s just great to share what’s working well so others can pick it up and use it if it’s applicable.

*It’s okay to publicly celebrate the good things: While you walk around you will see many amazing things that are happening on your campus.  Celebrate it!!! Let folks know about these great things!!! If you go into a class and all students are authentically engaged, let that teacher know and then celebrate it at an all staff gathering.  This helps build culture and it shows the faculty that it isn’t a “got you”, but something to truly help!

Of course there are many other things I probably left out.  However, I do think this is a great start.  Never forget the true reason that you are going from room to room each day with those forms in your hand!